"Just curious." Barton paused for a moment, thinking it out "Siewen, tell the Director that I am getting very hungry." There was a muffled conference on the screen.

"The Director says come here and be-fed," Siewen an- nounced. Barton grinned.

"I dont have to," he said softly. "Let me tell you about the last meal I had."

He told them, and the funny part was that Siewen seemed every bit as shocked as the Director. Barton let them chew on the idea a minute before he threw the bomb.

"OK, Siewen, here's how it works. Tell the Director and tell it straight. Either I get the ship to go home in, .in- structions and all, and the deal gets started right away, or else I have lunch now." He thought about it. "Consider- ing everything, I don't feel especially sadistic. So first I'll

36.

il; just eat me arm I've already broken. 111 leave the screen H, off, so the Director doesn't have to watch."

""' Barton hadn't thought a Demu-lobster could get as 4., loud as the Director did then. Eventually Siewen got the ^ floor. It seemed Barton had won his point; he had a good ^ healthy ship for himself. Sure, Mike, thought Barton;

*^ just watch out for the curve balls.

;;; Well, he'd known there had to be a handle somewhere

*(? -in the mess; luckily he'd found it. It had been a one-shot Muff, a game of schrecklicheit-because it would have ^;, done him no good to carry it out, even if he could have

brought himself to do so. But what the Director didn't ^ know wouldn't hurt Barton.

^ His mifld was getting hazy again, ghost-hallucinations ,; flickering around the outskirts. Toothlessly, the Tilari

*";: woman was telling him that they were expecting a little ":: bundle from Heaven. He shook his head and tried to con- y. centrate on the essentials.

"OK, Siewen," he said, "I don't need any coordinates to get to you, if I understand this location-blip thing on f- the screen." Siewen nodded. "Here's what happens," Bar- ^ ton continued. "You and the Director get down by the ship-my ship. Bring your locator gadget with you so I ;- don't have to mess around looking for you when I get k there. Everybody else stays away. Any last-minute ? tricks, I cut the shield and ram us all dead. You got that?

if- Any questions?" '*

^ There were several, but Barton simply said "NO'* to ^ most of them without paying much attention. He knew ( what he wanted. There was no point in arguing.

r Then Siewen, at the Director's prompting, insisted ^' Barton should see and talk with some other newly made :^ citizens of the Demu, before doing anything so drastic as s?;' what he was planning. "The hell with that," said Barton.

^ "Later. Just you two. Nobody else."

I It was about an hour that Barton's air car took, cruising to its destination. He saw no signs of habitation; possibly the research station was the only Demu installation on the planet. The little lobster was conscious again and whhn- pered occasionally, but it looked so apologetic that Bar- ton didn't feel like hitting it, even to maintain the precedent of silence. Anyway, the small sounds weren't joggling his mind as the screaming had done. He sipped on the foul-tasting water and decided it wasn't lobster piss after all, since his small lobster made begging mo-

37.

tions toward it, and drank some when he relented and made the offer. Then it opened its mouth and lifted its short tongue. Barton had no idea what the gesture meant, but the creature rewarded his generosity with silence. It was a good trade.

The spaceport, when he reached it, didn't look like much. There were three really big ships, two medium and one small. Upright torpedo shapes, not saucers. The big ones would be the meat wagons, he thought. They had an air of neglect about them.

He set the car to hover a little above and to one side of the small ship, facing a delegation of robed figures at fairly close range. He cranked up magnification on the direct-view display screen, and saw that there were four of them. f-

**What the hell you think you're doing?" Barton said. ^

**I said nobody else." H.

Siewen shrugged and spread his arms apologetically. ^

*'You must see other new Demu citizens," he said. "You 3{ said later, but only chance is now. You must know. With w me there were mistakes, yes. But these are functional _ ^ breeders and Demu citizens. As millions of Earth hu- mans will become, and all eventually, when the Demu have arranged. But see-I You will not forget Umila;

the other is of Earth." Siewen gestured.

The two figures slipped off their hoods and robes. Bar- ton took for granted the hairless earless noseless heads with serrated lips hiding toothless mouths with shortened tongues. (But oh! the lost lovely curve of Limila's lipsi) He didn't expect to see breasts set low on Limila's rib- cage, and sure enough, there weren't any. The lobsters scrubbed clean, singlemindedly. Siewen had said that the smooth treelike look of her, where Barton was look- ing now, still concealed true function: even so, it was one more coal on the fire in Barton's heart and mind.

Then there was the man, an Earthman if Siewen had that part right Siewen had certainly told truth that the Demu had "minimized protrusion" in the genital area;

whether or not the Demu citizen on the screen "retained function" was of only academic interest to Barton. He was trying very hard not to throw up. It's like the old joke about the man who went into the barbershop, he thought.

"Bob Peters here?" "No, just shave-and-a-haircuL"

"Siewen!" he shouted. "I've changed my mind."

"You come now and become Demu citizen?"

38.

"Like bloody hell I do!" Barton, bursting with frustra- tion and hatred, took especial pains not to turn and kill the small lobster beside him. Hell, it probably hadn't even carved up its first human yet. ---

"Then what is it you mean?" said Siewen.

"I mean we all go on the ship," Barton said. "The two of us here and the four of you there. All together we go in; don't move yet, any of you, or I crash the lot of us."

There was a conference down below. "Not possible,"

said Siewen. "The Director does not agree."

"In that case," said Barton, "I think it's time I had some lunch. I've changed my mind; I'll leave the screen on so that the Director can observe. I always did like crab salad." And he reached for the dangling broken arm of the small quiet lobster, the Director's egg-child.

Not too much later the Demu spacecraft lifted off, car- rying six assorted entities with very little rapport.

The ship's basic control system was roughly the same as the air car's, though with many more control switches.

For the moment, all Barton needed was power, naviga- tion and an outside view. He'd worry about the rest of it later, when he had to.

Siewen assured Barton that the Director had given him the correct course toward the region of Earth, and had agreed there would be no pursuit. Barton assured Siewen that the Director damn well "better had, if the Director wanted Barton to watch his diet.

A tense truce prevailed, largely because of Barton's policy that he would not put up with the company of fully functional Demu. He had broken one of the Director's arms the moment they were sealed inside the ship, when that worthy had tried to make use of a concealed weapon.

Then after a moment's thought, he broke the other one.

Subtler methods might have done the job, but Barton had found something that worked, so he stayed with it. He had trouble thinking outside the narrow boundaries of his main goal: freedom. The Director treated Barton with considerable respect, and was fed at intervals by bis egg-child, one-handedly.

Barton set and splinted the broken limbs, which was more than the Demu had bothered to do for him in like case. His own forearm still had a permanent jog to it and hurt more often than it didn't.

That wasn't all the hurt in Barton. Limiia remembered